Macarthur “Genius” Fellow Claudia Rankine and dramaturg P. Carl explore ways that contemporary theater and performance can catalyze and promote social justice in America. Rankine and Carl are currently collaborating on the upcoming world premiere of Rankine’s play The White Card. Claudia Rankine is the author of five collections of poetry, including Citizen: An American Lyric and Don’t Let Me Be Lonely; two plays, including Provenance of Beauty: A South Bronx Travelogue; and numerous video collaborations. She is the editor of several anthologies, including The Racial Imaginary: Writers on Race in the Life of the Mind. Rankine is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and teaches at Yale University as the Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry. P. Carl is the Distinguished Artist-in-Residence at Emerson College and a writer and lecturer on theater, gender, and inclusive practices. He is the former director of HowlRound Theatre Commons and the recipient of the 2017 Art of Change Fellowship from the Ford Foundation.

This Penny Stamps Speaker Series event is the keynote event for No Safety Net, a series by UMS.